The death toll due to Japanese Encephalitis in Odisha's Malkangiri today mounted to 45 with three more children falling prey to the disease even as show cause notices were issued to 22 officers in the tribal district.
The toll due to Japanese Encephalitis (JE), which stood at 42 yesterday, climbed to 45 following the death of three boys at the intensive care unit (ICU) of the district headquarters hospital here, Malkangiri District Collector K Sudarshan Chakravarthy said.
Unconfirmed reports, however, put the toll at 48 due to the vector-borne disease which has affected at least 22 villages spread over six blocks in the backward district.
At least 49 people were undergoing treatment at the district headquarters hospital with five of them in the ICU, Chakravarthy said, adding that so far, 67 people have been discharged from the hospital after treatment.
Meanwhile, more specialists, including five from Bhubaneswar, six from Berhampur and three from Cuttack, have reached the district to assist the doctors and experts already engaged in tackling the situation, officials said.
As the entire administration geared up to deal with the situation, the Collector today issued show cause notices to 22 nodal officers in the district for "dereliction of duty", a senior official said.
As many as 64 nodal officers were assigned the task of supervising the distribution of mosquito nets in the affected villages and isolation of the infected pigs and submit a report to the Collector.
Of them, 22 were issued the notices as they had failed to submit the reports within the stipulated time, the Collector said.
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Meanwhile, Odisha Health Secretary Arti Ahuja visited the adjoining Koraput and Malkangiri districts to review the situation and held talks with senior officials.
At Koraput, she interacted with officials of all the departments concerned and discussed the required preventive measures to ensure that the disease did not spread to the district.
It was decided to put checkposts along the areas bordering Malkangiri to restrict the entry of pigs into human habitats, while officials were asked to undertake awareness drives.
At Malkangiri, around 15,000 mosquito nets have so far been distributed among those in the affected areas and fogging and spraying of repellents have been intensified to check the mosquito menace, officials said.
As pigs are the carriers of the deadly virus, measures to isolate the animals and keep them in special enclosures away from human habitats have been intensified, a senior official said, adding that the virus is transmitted from pigs to mosquitoes and from mosquitoes to human beings.
Cooked food is being served from 479 anganwadi centres in Kalimela and Korakonda blocks to pregnant and lactating women and the ailing children, the Collector said.
Arrangements have been made to provide accommodation as well as lunch and dinner to them in the affected villages, he said, adding the objective was to tackle the problem of malnutrition by providing nutritious food.
